I'm not trying to be an elitist knocking kits at all...the reason I don't care for them is just that there's no real way to guarantee the freshness of the ingredients (hops and yeast do degrade over time, after all).

If you do go with a kit, try to find out how long it's been sitting on the shelf. I can't second the recommendation for unhopped malt extract, specialty grains, pelletized hops and liquid yeast enough though...good ingredients don't guarantee good beer, but you can't make good beer with bad ones!

I've been looking at the products offered by Midwest Homebrewing Supplies. While, they offer a lot of “kits,” I think theirs are different from what is being described elsewhere in this discussion. For example, their Autumn Amber Ale kit includes: 6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract, 2 oz. Special B, 8 oz. Crystal 80L, 2 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains, 1 oz. Hallertau , 1 oz. Fuggle pellet hops, yeast, priming sugar, and a grain bag. You get your choice of several dry or liquid yeasts. Much more stuff, yes?

I'm not trying to be an elitist knocking kits at all...the reason I don't care for them is just that there's no real way to guarantee the freshness of the ingredients (hops and yeast do degrade over time, after all).

If you do go with a kit, try to find out how long it's been sitting on the shelf. I can't second the recommendation for unhopped malt extract, specialty grains, pelletized hops and liquid yeast enough though...good ingredients don't guarantee good beer, but you can't make good beer with bad ones!

I've been looking at the products offered by Midwest Homebrewing Supplies. While, they offer a lot of “kits,” I think theirs are different from what is being described elsewhere in this discussion. For example, their Autumn Amber Ale kit includes: 6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract, 2 oz. Special B, 8 oz. Crystal 80L, 2 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains, 1 oz. Hallertau , 1 oz. Fuggle pellet hops, yeast, priming sugar, and a grain bag. You get your choice of several dry or liquid yeasts. Much more stuff, yes?

Yes, this would be good. a "kit" is a can of concentrated extract/hops/adjucts already mostly made, then boiled down. Just add more water, boil, cool add more water. No control, no fun, IMO.

this above follow my philosophy of always using light extract and adding adjunct grains and malts for color, flavor, etc. It is as close as you can get to mash brewing. if you use a dark extract, the manufacturer has added something like roasted barley, or patent malt or whatever, you do not really know, and you lose control. The next time you find a dark extract, it is going to be different, usually.

I'm not trying to be an elitist knocking kits at all...the reason I don't care for them is just that there's no real way to guarantee the freshness of the ingredients (hops and yeast do degrade over time, after all).

If you do go with a kit, try to find out how long it's been sitting on the shelf. I can't second the recommendation for unhopped malt extract, specialty grains, pelletized hops and liquid yeast enough though...good ingredients don't guarantee good beer, but you can't make good beer with bad ones!

I've been looking at the products offered by Midwest Homebrewing Supplies. While, they offer a lot of “kits,” I think theirs are different from what is being described elsewhere in this discussion. For example, their Autumn Amber Ale kit includes: 6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract, 2 oz. Special B, 8 oz. Crystal 80L, 2 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains, 1 oz. Hallertau , 1 oz. Fuggle pellet hops, yeast, priming sugar, and a grain bag. You get your choice of several dry or liquid yeasts. Much more stuff, yes?

It's a good way to get into brewing when you're not really comfortable with formulating your own recipes yet (along with others' recipes...the Clone Brew books that Tess and Mark Szmatulski write are a great source of inspiration). Once you start to look at ingredients and know how they taste and smell and what kind of color they add to your beer, when you can basically picture and taste the beer above, then it's certainly fun to make up your own!

I'm about 3-4 weeks away from removing some bourbon I've been aging in a barrel. I'd like to make a homebrew, and age it in the same barrel for a few weeks. Should I add the sugar (usually the last step for carbonation) before putting the beer in the barrel or after, or both? I would think putting it in after is a requirement, but that assumes the yeast is still around. Any ideas?

I apologize for bumping such an old thread, but I ordered the stuff to try a home brew once again. I ordered a clone kit of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Starting off with a kit to just get myself familiar with the brewing method and from there I'd like to start experimenting on my own. Anyone have any good recipes that they've brewed before whether it be all grain, partial grain or all extract?

pressure=9Pa wrote:Anoyone know where to get small quantities of millet for brewing? I've been picking it out of bird seed.

my one buddy here (he's german) brews his own beer and for things like yeast and small amounts of certain ingredients he goes to local breweries and either gets them for free or a small price (like buying the brewmaster a beer)

So after two days of no activity in my primary fermenter, I started to get worried that the brew wasn't going to happen. Thought maybe I messed something up, or it got ruined due to bad sanitation, but I sanitized everything thoroughly. I moved my bucket from a towel on the cement floor in my basement, up to a table and wrapped it in a few blankets, woke up this morning and we have fermentation. Very happy it's not ruined.

I did order a bottling bucket from monsterbrew online. Came with no spigot despite the description saying a spigot was included. E-mailed them today, so hopefully they can get that to me before I bottle in a couple weeks.